coverage of the us. show you american history tv that tell our nation's story. and 50th wars anniversary, investing battlefields and historic sites what are the facts reveal about the history. the presidency, looking at policy and legacie. lectures in history with college professors.

c-span 3, lectures on facebook follow us on twitter. >> american history tv. visit the research interest of one of the world's largest libraries. on american s history tv, is sophie oliver, a ndidate from the university of london. >> in the body that funds my they sent some people out. learning about it i discovered how important the library was. resources they have here, i

learned that they had a full front since agazine the 1920. was interested in finding out more about that. us who julie barns. >> she died in 1982, she had a long life. she was in this experimental writers. she was an american. she was a journalist, working until the mid-20's. she started publishing and in this magazine, charm. articles were published of her work.

i also looked into this context of the charm magazine, i wanted to learn more and i only saw a review. were rs of this period publishing their work, i thought i would take a look and find out more about it. >> did she write under her own name? >> no. to use a pseudonym. to locate you able her articles? >> i could see that there were a number of articles in total ten for charm, it of them had been on

her name the others are available in her archive. it is interesting to see the what is a random, the amazing itself, to learn more about the audiences. >> what was her audience like? a journalist from she started from the brooklyn daily eagle. she was use the newspaper was investigated and clever. part of what makes an experimental writer. she liked experimenting with different voices and registers. in time, the audience system. was distributed to 88,000 in

a state of new jersey. i doubt very much the people ported out at new charity. that difficult to say from the articlesand advertisers would say there were middle class, men with be more than to that. perhaps with more wealth. they had leisure time and there were broadly interested in domestic issues. women who ad been were involved in the movement? women that the magazine, i think. it was very different from the magazines, it was less direct selling tool. it was a consumer magazine. woman that read at, i would think they necessarily active women.

but sadly some of the women magazine ing to the had been involved in the some were vement and active feminist. >> who would have been her contemporary in terms of other women writers in magazine? some r contemporaries in of the mainstream magazines be like vanity fair. there is a kind of sophisticated knowing of writing which response to this audience. >> was she in touch

his other women writers? >> i don't think she was related to dorothy parker. paris in the is a 20's and in and out of the same circle than james joyce. figures of the period. >> tell us what you found here at the archive? >> i have had the whole charm to my desk, and lots of time go through it. discovered an ambitious magazine, the trent used this magazine as a promotional tool to cultivate a particular audience. they also wanted to cultivate an aura of modernity.

it has modern time faces an can of confident bubble. mixes photography and illustration, with more modern journals of the period. you look at it, it is modern but what is a very interesting has an ime is that it equally confident local focus on new jersey issues. it blends, this kind of issues of modernity with women and working in new jersey. issues kind of local have you come across? >> women in politics. they commissioned him to write

in umber of pieces, i read one of his memoirs that he was writing about new jersey. natural history, i suppose. coastline bout the and things like that. >> have you been able to get some conclusions from the research he have done so far? the research to queue in a different direction? idea that the magazine was trying to negotiate its from a modern outlook, for modern progressive women negotiating new roles. women who are interested in interior design and fashion, and recipe could also be

interested in politics, art and literature. kind of emphasis combined with this confident localism is what characterises the magazine. very interesting for me because of that we associatemodern writing with cosmopolitan paris and new york. also the sense that the fashion came from paris, but there is combined with his new jersey regional interest. that we s the idea thought is cosmopolitan. >> was the original subjeect for a ph.d.? is female modernist writers, and how they write about fashion in their work.

hull fashion is interesting to as how otherhe pass things might be trend-driven, avenue onto guard itself. guard itself. >> how about how fashion indicates the passage of time? an image in one of her early books of poetry as a pregnant baby, a strange vision of times. quite interested in that. it is a way for her to focus on modernity and how it quickly comes and then is gone. it is a passing moment. that shehat image draws to accompanied this book of poetry, a woman wearing up to date, fashionable trousers.

the comparison is kind of saying that the modern women we are invested in will be old hat. >> talk to us about that modern moment. what was the world they lived in? what was it like? what was happening for these women? when women were able to negotiate their identities for themselves in a way they had not been before. this is happening from the late 19th century. is a group of women and men in greenwich village who new ways, writing the scripts for themselves, in a sense. women could wear trousers in public. approvedt necessarily of in some circles, but there was a sense of freedom. i don't want to overstate that. untildid not get the vote 1920 in america and 1928 in

england. a big part of it because it was a way of women expressing themselves. >> what contributions do you hope your research will make? >> i hope that my research idea ofs to expand the the important figures of this time. for a long time, modernism was up to debate. male figures, t.s. eliot. in the past couple of decades, some scholars have really kind of expanded on notions, including on peripheral figures. i am hoping that my work kind of continues that work that has already been done, but also by bringing her into the subject like fashion, which is also kind of a marginalized subject,

continues to be marginalized. about theshow more kind of cultural context these people were working in and how they were thinking through issues affecting women in modernity. fashion is one of the ways in which they did that. >> how do you think the study of fashion has been marginalized? with women in delhi. it is not seen as a serious issue, i suppose. bull --women in della indelibly. it is not seen as a serious issue, i suppose. is a kind ofon valid, cultural form that writers are interested in. >> have you found any surprises in your research?

surprised toly one of the nicest discoveries i made here was who the first editor of "charm" was. i could not find anything about her, elizabeth. i could not find her name anywhere. then i was reading a memoir that i mentioned. he mentioned what he did for "charm." he mentioned bessie. her name was really bessie. that she, as well as being a prolific journalist, she was also associated with avant-garde circles of the time. journal.ut a

it was really interesting to me to know that these people were not just commercially-driven. given discoveries like this, has the research raised any questions for you in terms of your inquiries here at the library of congress? ofthat is really kind driving the path i take in thinking about the identity of "charm" and its modernist credentials. regional of a kind of reception of modernism, literature, art, it is an aspect of study in the period that i look at. it is modernism and literature happening and it

is perceived in different places, including europe. the way it is disseminated is really important for what we know about modernism. that ismore about something that can definitely be developed. >> sophie oliver, thank you for being with us on american history tv. >> you are wearing -- watching american history tv on c-span3. it is featured on holidays and during congressional recesses. tonight, a historian discusses george washington's relationship with army general benedict arnold. he looks at how washington's response to arnold's failed plan offers insights about washington's leadership and character. :55 p.m. eastern time today on c-span3. each week, american history tv's re